


Just Kids

by ohthatscold



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Comfort, F/M, Hurt, Romance, Slow Burn, implied eating problems, self doubt, they’re confused babies help them, unofficial relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27302683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohthatscold/pseuds/ohthatscold
Summary: They’re a little broken and the world’s selling them something hard to swallow. It’s okay, though. They can try fixing each other.
Relationships: Akechi Goro & You, Akechi Goro/Reader
Comments: 20
Kudos: 47





	1. Fixing a Hole

**Author's Note:**

> writing is scary lol. feel free to validate, i haven’t done this in a while. this first chapter is a little shorter, i’m just testing the waters.

It’s early when she wakes up.

The bed she’s in is one she’s sat on before, picking at the loose thread in the bottom left corner of his sheets while she tickled his ears with kind honey-coated words. She toyed with existence here before, with him. That was only once; they were both a few too many glasses in, wine drunk words slipping through their lips before they could give them a second thought. They’d leant over the balcony together, learning that life is precious, and he’d laughed bitterly, pouring their bottle of overpriced wine down below. She had tried to drink it. They laughed again.

Her stomach grumbles, and she stands up, her bones aching and creaking like a willow tree. She twists to the doorway, around boxes- new gifts of furniture from friends and visitors, decorations for the hollow shell of an apartment. They’d arrived two weeks ago. The boxes were untouched. She jabs her finger between the tape, pulling cardboard beneath her skin, and slips out of the room with purpose. Purpose to drink a cup of coffee and find out what the hell time it is. 

Akechi is hunched over in the kitchen, humming something under his breath. She likes to think he’s singing to himself, and it warms her in the bitter cold of his apartment. It’s surprising to see him there, they’d been up so late last night that she was sure he might’ve slept in longer. The glare of the clock on the oven catches her eyes. It’s 4am. 

“I didn’t think you’d be awake yet.” 

His voice startles her, cutting through the apartment, and it’s soft yet sharp. She always thought he’d have a morning voice, hoarse and wavering, so much different to his usually silver tongued words. Perhaps he’s been up longer than she thought. 

Words get caught in her throat, “good morning”s and “how did you sleep?”s seem inappropriate given the hour, and the way he looks at her shows that both of those options would be silly. She wants to crack a joke, tell him they’re wearing matching circles under their eyes, that at this rate they could seriously consider becoming nocturnal. But everything dies on her lips, so all she can do is stand in the doorway, wide eyed, silent. 

“Do you want a coffee?” 

“Please.” 

“You surprised me, there.” He laughs nervously, flicking the kettle on. “Was the bed not comfortable? I’ll have to invest in a new mattress then. That is... if you plan on staying again.” 

“The bed was fine, Akechi, really.” She steps closer, toes on the end of the carpet, afraid to rest her feet on the chill of the kitchen tile. “I just couldn’t sleep, that’s all. How long have you been awake?” 

“Not too long.” He looks at the clock. “Though I suppose we’re up quite early. We seem to have become accustomed to it now, don’t you think?” 

She chokes out a laugh; it’s ugly and lumpy with the words she’s been dying to say since she woke up. Akechi doesn’t mind, and he laughs along with her. While it rings short and quiet, it’s the best they can do right now, and neither of them take it for granted. The kettle boils and it’s quiet again, save for the sound of the water pouring and the occasional car driving by. 

“You didn’t answer my question earlier.” He still has his back to her, speaking ever so calmly, being ever so Akechi. “Will you be staying again?” 

“I can’t say.” Clink. He stops stirring the coffee. “But we’ve done this so many times before.” She hurries out her words, afraid of breaking him in his own kitchen, like a piece of china dropped from a cabinet. “I’m sure I’ll be here again.” Glancing around the room, she pauses, breathing in sharply. “I’m certain of it.” 

Crunching on the caffeine silence, she steps into the kitchen, gingerly stepping on the tiles. Had Akechi’s apartment always been this cold? Drunk, she wouldn’t have noticed. Crying, she wouldn’t have cared. She realises this is the first time she’s been okay since she’d started visiting regularly, and it sends a jolt through her when she reaches for her mug. She convulses, her shoulders hunching forward with a tremor rushing through her spine. This was the first time. There was no alcohol to giggle behind. No broken heart to blame careless words on. It was all out there for him to see. 

Good, she thought. At least he cant hide either. 

But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t still afraid. 

“Your boxes”, she starts, gripping her mug with such ferocity that it sinks burns into her rough skin. It’s warm, so it doesn’t matter. It’s so much different to the air she’s breathing. “You haven’t opened them yet.”

“No.” With a flat voice, he barely glances across the apartment to where the boxes are piled, lining the hallway to his bedroom. “I don’t care for them.” 

“How do you know?” 

He scoffs, an ugly sound that irks her, and she grips the mug tighter. The conversation is tinted grey with his apathy, twisted sourly by his own ego. It doesn’t mix well with her coffee, and her stomach starts to feel sick. Either that or she’s hungry. They didn’t eat last night. She doubts they’ll eat this morning. “It’s not important.” 

“I feel sick.” She blurts out, because the silence is getting uncomfortable and the boy opposite her is pretending that all of this is unimportant. Morning coffee between friends looks nothing like this, and she’s tired of tip-toeing around the term that’s stiff in the air between them. Akechi blinks. Once, twice, slow heavy blinks. She thinks he’s clearing the sleep from his eyes. He doesn’t go to make a move to help her. 

_______

Hushed chatter passes between them as the sun starts to rise. They’re sat at the table, Akechi still, and poised, while she drums her fingers on the outside of her cup, her legs hooked around the chair. 

Sickness was long gone, replaced with joviality and half a slice of toast each. He offers her jam, a rarity for his guests, so she gladly accepts and for the first time since she woke up, life is simple. Simplicity with Akechi is rare, so she laps up every drip of it, from the way he finally sinks back into his seat, to the soft smile he throws her way when he catches her staring.

She wonders what they look like to other people. Spindly lovers with hollowed eyes and rosy cheeks, pinched by the thrill of romance. Would other people see them for what they were? Lost, stupid, broken teenagers searching for solace, hoping to fix each other so they could put off fixing themselves. Impossible. No one looked at them long enough to see that. They were just young lovers in Tokyo, envied by everyone. 

She doesn’t think they should be envied. 

Good God it breaks her heart to think anyone could be damaged enough to envy them.

He catches her eye again. Amused, he squints at her, stirring a 3rd spoonful of sugar into his coffee. She knows he’s searching her, but she’s too sober to share the thoughts in her head so she flashes him a smirk and pulls the shirt she’s borrowing over her shoulders. 

The apartment’s warm now but the air still feels stale. Neither of them dare to speak, reluctant to spill their thoughts over the table. She accidentally bumps his knee with her leg, but he bumps hers back, wrapping his cold bare leg around her own. 

Someone might call it strange. A silent couple, barely wisps of life, laughing quietly at each other, their legs tied together. Oddly, she feels at peace, and though she knows they’ll break the safety net they’ve been building for each other for so long, in that moment, none of the doubt that lingers between them bothers her at all. 

What they have is what they know. But she wants to change that. And she can only hope that Akechi wants it too.


	2. Lucky Charms and Housewarming

Leblanc is at its quietest on Sundays. Oddly enough, the ‘let’s wallow in coffee and self pity to cope with our Sunday blues’ offered by the little shop isn’t enough for the residents of Yongen-Jaya, who get their end of the week kicks from elsewhere. Where it should be filled with idle chatter about weekday worries and scrapes of cutlery, the regulars instead barely speak over a whisper, and they take their cups and slump slowly into a serenity rarely found in Tokyo. 

The TV is on, Sojiro likes having the news on in the background, says he feels awkward hearing what other people have to say. Everyone frets for the coldest Winter in Tokyo yet. 

Akira Kurusu wipes the counter for the 5th time. 

Goro Akechi still hasn’t arrived. 

___________

He meets him by accident. 

Accident. Coincidence. Fate, is it? Akira finds it hard to believe that he could stumble upon a boy like Goro Akechi simply on a fluke. 

He’s feeling the walls in the alley behind Leblanc when he hears him coughing. It frightens him, alone, in the dark, a dripping bag of curry remnants and coffee beans gripped tightly in his left hand, hearing someone retching like that. 

God, he hasn’t heard anything so grim since Ryuji went for a run after shovelling two bowls of curry down his throat. 

Again, the sound rips through the silence, tearing it jaggedly with splutters and splashes. 

That alone makes his blood run cold. He imagines it blue if it poured out of him, royal with fear.

It shoots through him like some electric current, twists and jumbles his stomach like that damned rubix cube Yusuke owns. Not quite the same as when he looks at pretty girls, though, with flushed cheeks and gummy insides. 

This makes his mouth dry, cotton filled cheeks pulling the saliva from his cheeks like some inner vacuum. His body’s screaming at him to run and pretend it never happened. Put the bin in the can and walk away, it would be easy; keep his head down, smile politely, slip back upstairs and beneath his covers. 

Easy.

But then, he’d be no better than that bastard on the street all those months ago.

And Akira swore he’d never be like him. 

“Are you okay?” 

Stupid. What kind of question is that? Of course the poor soul heaving their guts out from just metres away from him isn’t okay. But what else can he say? Offering any kind of help seems useless at best, and he hasn’t quite built up the courage to outright walk up to the stranger just yet. As far as he’s concerned, this could all be some sick trick to lure him into the back of a Yakuza van. 

He thinks he hears the person say ‘fine’ but it’s hard to make out from their thick voice. 

“Would you like anything?” The hitch in his voice betrays the little shred of confidence he’s been gathering over the past 5 minutes, there’s something about it that makes him embarrassed, but it’s not enough to move him from the alleyway. “I can call someone.” 

“No.” 

“Well could I at least get your name?” 

Another cough. This one’s weaker, reminds him of a little child. ‘Akechi’ spills from the strangers mouth like poison, choked out like it’s unwanted. 

And Akira thinks it might be. Maybe Akechi wants to remain a stranger: a nobody. Maybe that’s why he’s hidden, just a shadow beneath the quilt of the night. Maybe, just maybe, he wants to be someone, anyone else. 

That night he makes room in his heart for Akechi, the coughing stranger with his feelings caught in his throat. 

_____________

“Nice of you to join me.” 

The bell by the door rings true to the sound of Goro’s arrival. Akira doesn’t have to look at him to know the state he’s in, run down and worn thin by work and his mind. 

His laugh fills the room and it’s warm. 

“Isn’t it.” He’s scuffing his shoes along the floor in that heavy way he does when he’s tired. “One coffee.” He sits. “Just how I like it, please.” 

There’s a sluggish lilt to his voice that confirms Akira’s earlier suspicions, and he fights the urge to smile as he fills the machine with beans. As many times as he and Akechi have laughed over their misfortunes, the tired sigh that fills the room shows him that this evening will be different, filled with way too much coffee drinking and somber thoughts that by the time they’ve made it through their 6th cup, it’s already sunrise, and Sojiro’ll be banging on the door at silly-o’clock in the morning. 

“Bad day?” 

“What gave me away?” There’s that laugh again, warm and gentle. It’s overly so, and Akira knows he’s forcing it from his belly, because he looks at him and dear God he almost breaks. He’s hollow, again, skeletal in his place, but poised like he’s comfortable, ever so calm and collected even though he’s wasting away. “Seems like every day’s a bad one now doesn’t it.” 

Akira takes Sojiro’s best china from the cupboard. 

Akechi requests it once, when he starts becoming a regular. It’s a few months after the two of them first meet, and since that he’s come to visit Leblanc every Wednesday and Sunday. The crockery’s all being used, Wednesday’s their busiest day, so Akechi simply settles into his usual booth by the stairs and calmly requests to drink his coffee in ‘that beautiful set Mr.Sakura uses’. And well, who would Sojiro be to decline such a request from such a boy. 

“Well you look like shit.” 

Neither of them can stop the laughter that creeps past their lips. They shouldn’t laugh, it’s awful really, but the bluntness in Akira’s voice sends a needed jolt of joy through Akechi’s veins and so he just… laughs. It peels through him suddenly, his stomach filling with friendship and goodness, splitting open his cold insides with life and youth and all the things he’s been missing out on for so long. 

“You’re probably right.” He watches him finally melt into his seat and uncross his legs, taking off his gloves like he’s peeling off an ever so carefully constructed layer of himself. “I haven’t looked at myself all day.” 

“Good.” Akira jokes, squishing the beans slowly to the bottom of the pot. “You still want cream with all these sugars?”

“Yes. Like I said, my usual.” 

He nods but he knows Akechi isn’t looking. 

One cup of coffee acts as something to hide behind when Akira places it in front of him. His fingers find it almost immediately, wrapping around the rim and handle, running circles up and down it. He’s seen him like this so many times before, eyes locked onto the sickly sweetness of the coffee he likes, pouring his day into it through worried stares. He feels pity for him, and he knows he shouldn’t since it’s the kind of thing Akechi hates, so he hides it safely behind a plain Akira Kurusu face, casually swiping a hand through his hair as if it’ll put him at ease. 

At first, it’s awkward. Akira doesn’t really know what to say and Akechi is so invested in his cup that it seems wrong to interrupt him. There’s so many questions tingling his tongue and with every tick of the clock it gets harder and harder to keep them in his mouth. 

So he lets one slip out. 

“How is she?” 

The beady eyes that’ve been doing everything they can to avoid his face suddenly fly open, all alert and eager, as if tiredness had never weighed them down. And he knows know that they’ll talk now for hours. 

__________

He almost tells her he loves her when she’s underneath him.

He’s not sure why he doesn’t since he’s sure she’ll say it back if he did. But he’s afraid, still. Too fragile to put his heart so bravely on his sleeve. 

He hopes she can see it somewhere in his eyes when he looks down at her, hopes she can feel it when they breathe life into each other, hopes that in that precious mind of hers, she’s thinking the exact same things as him. 

She finishes before he can say it. 

_________

“One white carnation, please.” 

Akechi’s handing over his yen before she can stop him, kindly thanking the man at the stall before slipping the single flower behind her ear, pressing a gentle kiss to her head. 

“Do you know what the white carnation means?” 

Honestly, she doesn’t (she thinks he’s just being a gentleman, buying her a flower) so she tilts her head in his direction. “No. What is it?” 

“Maybe I should leave it to you to find out. Perhaps you should look it up, when you have the time. Then I’ll explain.” 

She nods and they continue their walk through Shibuya, fingertips barely brushing as they meld into the crowd, one boy with love in his empty chest, one girl with a flower in her hair.  
________

‘The white carnation’ She reads, tucked up in a corner of Akira’s room. He offers to lend her a book he’s borrowing from the flower shop, in exchange for curry and a catch up, which she can hardly refuse. ‘Acts as a lucky charm. They’re often used to represent hope and hunger for new growth and renewal. A great testament to the givers true feelings.’

“What does it say?” Akira asks through a mouthful of curry. 

Wordlessly, she hands it over, the words lucky and new swimming around her head with thoughts of him. It’s a heady mix of desire and fear that sticks to her skin and swirls her stomach to nausea. 

“He must like you a lot.” 

“Yeah…” She takes the flower from her ear, turns it over in her palm, once, twice, thinks about the smile the man at the stall gave them because no one’s ever looked at them like that before and it all makes sense. “Yeah I think so.” 

Akira closes the book, settles comfortably next to her and looks at the flower, the omen of Goro Akechi’s first show of love. He knows it means something, a lot, to the both of them, but there’s something on his mind that he just can’t shake. 

“Why isn’t he with you tonight?” 

“Beats me.” Her hand closes around the bloom, crunches it carefully between cold fingers, and she stuffs it away in her coat pocket like it had never been lovingly placed in her hair. “Work again. I think. He doesn’t tell me.” 

“Do you know why?” The book gets pushed back onto his crappy bookshelf. “I’m not trying to pry, it’s just…” 

“He’s distant. I know.” Her eyes can’t quite meet Akira’s since she knows he’s searching her just like Akechi does. There’s nothing to hide, though, no secret between the two of them that she won’t let him in on. Plain and simple, that’s the truth. “Quit staring me down. I’ve told you what I know.” 

A moment of quiet sits in the room with them, just long enough to hear Sojiro swear angrily after the grocery bag splits. Akira knows not to laugh because it would be odd and he knows she won’t join in. On any other day, they would’ve crumpled into each other in teenage giggles, but she’s sitting there, glazed and distant, so he knows he has to do something more than poke her ribs and flash her a smile. 

And the answer comes to him sooner than he thinks. Because plastered up onto his wall, beneath pictures of cats and Ann and Ryuji, hangs a scrap of old paper: Akechi’s apartment listing from a year ago, before he bought the place. 

“I think we can fix this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a couple of things :) 
> 
> -to my fellow uk pals, i hope you’re all staying safe, this is a tricky time for us again 
> 
> -to any us friends, good luck and again, be safe 
> 
> this one’s unrelated to the other two but does anyone know how to change the name of my first chapter haha. this makes me sound so old but i have no idea how to do it [don’t worry i’ve figured it out ;)] 
> 
> another quick question, i’ve been thinking about switching the ‘she’ pronoun to ‘you’ since i kinda like it better and it feels more immersive. what do you guys think? 
> 
> thank you for reading and enjoying


	3. The Consequences of Gum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m sorry for all i’m about to do

News of Akechi’s housewarming spreads quickly.

No one questions it, much. There’s a moment, sure, where everyone asks Akira why it’s all a year too late, why it’s suddenly so urgent to do something for someone that’s never really done anything for them.

But he makes it quite clear, tells them all that it’s for the best. Everyone quietly goes along with it after that. At least, almost everyone.

His phone buzzes with a message from Ryuji just as Ann’s texting them about decorations.

‘The guy’s a real ass, yknow that?’

He’s tempted to ignore it. His two best friends up against each other? It would be easier for him to turn off his phone and throw some half-assed excuse Ryuji’s way tomorrow: sorry, my phone died. I was too tired to respond. Sojiro wanted-

 _Ding._ A double text.

‘He’s lucky I like his girlfriend. And you, at that. Just don’t expect me to be all friendly with the bastard, alright?’

 _‘Don’t get involved’_ he tells himself, over and over as he re-reads Ryuji’s message one, two, three times.

‘I don’t think she’s his girlfriend’ he texts, chewing his thumbnail like it’s a lifeline. ‘You’ll still come?’

There’s a few minutes where he worries that he won’t get a reply. He knows how easily Ryuji gets run down by his anger, harder to blow out than it is to set alight, especially towards a guy like Akechi. But then his phone is lighting up again and that thumbnail of his is all chewed up.

‘I ain’t making any promises.’

He decides not to reply. Maybe he’ll end up using one of those excuses anyway.

**________**

Akechi knows what’s going on.

The girl who he clings so desperately to in his mornings is suddenly lighter on her feet, brighter in that smile she flashes to him when she catches him staring, softer in her kisses and gentler in her touches.

He notices she’s poked another hole in those boxes by his door, dragged her finger through it so he sees the sickeningly over-polite gifts forced upon him from acquaintances and extremely distant relatives. It’s cute, honestly, a little endearing if he thinks about it hard enough, the way she cares about him, leaving little hints around his home. But the gifts are formalities, insincere and forced. He thinks he’d rather open something from her instead.

So while it would be nice to play pretend, act surprised when she rocks up to his apartment late at night, fake friends and alcohol and kisses in tow, he tells her the night before that he knows. He knows there’s a chance she’ll be hurt, turn her bare back to him against the chill of the moons pallor, leave him to stare aimlessly at what could’ve been. But, she’s still gentle, and careful, and oh so kind that for a moment, his breath catches on his heart and he’s scared he’s not enough for her anymore. 

And then the ‘I love you’ words are stuck on his lips again, tasting sweetly of commitment and vulnerability.

While she’s sleeping, his hands trace her ribs. He feels his own, compares them, feels each bone stick out just the same, and wonders how they got so skinny; the meals of desperate pining and lying haven’t been filling them up. Bile builds in his throat but he knows he has to swallow down sick and truths, thoughts about being too broken for each other running thickly down to his stomach.

She turns and tugs the sheets close to her. Akechi barely flinches.

Parties never really were his thing. There’s always a list, such a rigid structure of things to do, that to him, they almost feel like work: greet everyone loudly as you walk in, pretend you know people that you’ve never seen before in your life, get drunk to have a good time otherwise you might as well just go home, make out with a stranger that you barely recognise and then spend your morning bleary eyed and pissed off.

Not really much about it appeals to him.

He wonders if this’ll be different. Intimate, maybe, filled with idle banter and easy conversation, nothing forced about anything. But then, that scares him more than hiding behind crowds of people under coloured lights and cigarette smoke.

He thinks there’s a way to change things- it’s just whether she’ll feel the same about him afterwards or not.

For the first time in his life, he’s afraid. Not in the silly butterflies in the tummy heart in the throat kind of way, just how he feels when he’s alone in the dark. Real, genuine fear scratches at his insides, like hunger after a missed meal, and he’s scared of himself- of her- of what they might do. A strange confidence seeps through into the already teetering mind of his, swelling the irrational anger and unspoken love inside him while pushing those risky little thoughts from earlier even closer to the front of his mind.

They start to slip. Trickle carefully down one at a time (he imagines it like a leaking tap. _Pit. Pat:_ one by one.)

Shivers run their way down his spine. He blames them on the cold Winter air, then wishes she wasn’t such a quilt hog.

**________**

She looks at him like he’s lovely, and he’s petrified. Lovely. It sticks to his teeth, feels gritty and foreign, thick like a layer of sugar building its way into him, makes him want to brush his gums a thousand times until they bleed just so he feels something familiar.

Green defines the fade to the colour in his cheeks, but he feels yellow. Whether it’s warm or sickly he can’t decide but it jumbles up his insides all the same, and it’s nothing he can blame on an empty stomach and half a glass of wine.

The _Sauvignon_ sits between them on the table, unscrewed and waiting for another serving to be poured. She won’t make the first move, he knows it’s best that he doesn’t either (he feels lightheaded enough without it.) So they just sit, two of them with words to say and the other one there to help them say them.

He finishes his glass. It doesn’t wash away the gravelly feel in his mouth but it burns him with a fleck of courage, enough for him to say “I’m scared.”

Today it rains and the sound offers solitude behind the weight of his words. A heaviness pulls on the fabric of his insides, a feeling that he can’t quite locate because it strains his whole body so deeply that he’s ashamed to be so sober after divulging his thoughts so openly.

She’s waiting for him to speak again. There’s no ‘of what’s?’ or ‘why’s?’, never one to interrupt, she’s patient, ready, willing to listen. Finally, good god, there’s someone there to listen.

And he decides not to take it for granted.

“I’m afraid.” He repeats, wavering on the artificial confidence that starts to teeter beneath his words. “Of us. And you. Maybe myself, a little bit. You’re giving me a chance at happiness, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t want it. It wants to ruin us, whatever we have, and I’m afraid… because sometimes I want it to.” A second passes where he stops to look at her, hoping to momentarily gauge some sort of reaction, but his eyes pass over hers too quickly and he’s already running off his mouth again. “I want it to be ruined because I’m used to it. I want you to hide me away from your friends because you’re embarrassed, I want you to stop saying the night, to go _home_ because, christ, when was the last time you went home?”

Salt spills between the pale cracks in his cheeks and it burns like guilt imprinting itself into his flesh. Wine and tears do not mix. This isn’t what he wants.

Their lunch together is meant to go differently: he slips out of work early, buys them a nice bottle of something to split over some overpriced manju that would only get half eaten. Afterwards, he can kiss her as much as he wants because his phone’s on silent and outside of his apartment, Tokyo has stopped moving- it’s them against nothing. She wishes him a good afternoon and he returns the favour before he’s back outside where the city comes to life again. Winter melts into Spring inside his heart, and he pities the people he sees bundled in scarves.

He, instead, is one of them. Cold, stiff, unloving. The manju is a waste of his money, the wine a garish reminder of their true nature. It’s itchy and grim, the effect of the words he’s chosen irritatingly tickle the back of his neck, but he doesn’t want to take them back, swallow them down with a helping of alcohol with resolve. So it doesn’t go the way he wants. Rather, he cries, tears splitting and flowing across his cheeks, beneath his chin, onto the collar of his new suit, and breaks the chain of laughter and flirtation that starts to bloom between them (the white carnation comes to life). At least, though, she’s here, that’s more than he can ask for, and better yet, she still looks at him like he’s lovely.

Akechi calls himself lucky, counts her as his one and only blessing on his index finger underneath the table, before a sigh ripples through him, releasing his limbs from the taut strain of repression. His muscles relax, expand, his body slowly churning its way back to life so he can finally lift his head to look at her again.

She pours them each another glass, cool serenity all over her face as she sets the bottle back down. One sip. Silence. Another sip. Cars rushing by beneath them painfully remind Akechi that life is moving on outside whether he likes it or not. His stomach flips: he joins her in drinking.

1 o’clock rings through his home, the city centre chimes its clock just a few blocks away. He thinks she takes this as her cue to speak, because she pushes what’s left of her wine towards him, squints carefully behind dark circles then hesitates, bites her tongue a little bit (he wonders if it’s enough to draw blood).

Of all the things, he doesn’t expect her to start smiling at him. “Shit, Akechi.” She breathes, the smile sinks down into one of sadness, a pitiful line bordering between melancholic and joyous. “I’m absolutely petrified. You… terrify me in a way that I can’t even explain. I’m falling so fast it’s like suicide, and I don’t want to because… because we don’t belong together. The two of us. We’re too stupid and broken to ever last as long as we want to. We can wrap as much cello-tape around each other as we want but we both know that it can only do so much.”

His stomach twists. He understands.

“But you’re lovely. Everything is right when I’m with you because to me, you are lovely. We’re both so blue that it makes sense to just mix together. It’s dangerous. But, dear God, Akechi, isn’t that how life’s meant to be?”

That smile she wore now twitches at his own lips, bitter in its flavour.

Her fingertips find his cheeks, swipe the worries and tears from his face, and he knows that everything will be okay.

“I know.” He counts her on his finger again. “I know.”

**________**

“You got any gum?”

“Is that really all you can think about right now?”

Akira tugs another can of cider from its rings, putting it in the bucket of ice Ryuji had so begrudgingly filled. They’d been decorating for about an hour and a half (the first 30 minutes had been spent running through Akechi’s apartment, marvelling at its size), and neither of them could say they’d gotten very far at all.

“Look man, this is boring as hell!” Ryuji kicks his legs out, frustrated, then slumps back into the corner of the sofa. “This couch is uncomfortable too. What is this? Velvet?”

“Stop complaining and blow up those balloons.”

Akira’s experienced tension headaches before. They start in his neck, make it hard to turn his head left or right, creep to behind his ears where the pain tingles the top of his forehead and sits heavily on his hairline to weigh down the rest of his head. The mix of Ryuji’s complaining and unpredictability of Akechi run rampant through his nerves and send another one jolting through his skull.

“You got any or not?”

“No.” Akira sets the final can away, decides to take two out for him and Ryuji anyway, then joins him on the couch, which, now that he sits there, he realises, isn’t very comfortable at all. “Go out and get some if you want it that bad.”

He opens his first, watching expectantly as Ryuji drums his thumbs on the lid. “Nah. It’s too cold out there. I’m sure Akechi’s got somethin’ around here.”

“Get me an aspirin while you’re up.”

Ryuji shrugs him off as he wanders through into the kitchen, picks at a chip of paint on the wall on the way, then starts to rummage through the cupboards, taking little consideration of the pounding in Akira’s head. He shivers, pulls his jumper over his hands and folds himself further into the sofa. Akechi’s apartment is stone cold and it nips and bites Akira’s skin, which oddly doesn’t surprise him, given that, in all its starkness, there isn’t enough love in the rooms to provide them with heat.

The hole of nothingness he starts to fall into suddenly fills up with glass smashing beside him. He jolts up to Ryuji’s exclamation of “Ah, fuck,” peers through into the kitchen, only to see him standing there, guilty, the contents of an expensive bottle of something or other gradually seeping into an ever growing puddle on the tile, decorated prettily with little shards of glass. “Do you think he’ll notice?”

Akira has to stop himself from laughing. It’s rare to see Ryuji looking so afraid, doe eyed and rosy cheeked, probably bricking it inside his head. God, if only he could take a picture. “No. Not at all.”

They both blink at each other.

“I’ll find something to clear this up. You,” he points accusingly at Ryuji with narrowed eyes. “Don’t move.”

He leaves to the sound of Ryuji swearing under his breath over and over, and he can’t help the small chuckle that slips past his lips. If he had to predict it, he could say with full conviction that he knew something would go wrong while they were there, but he thought it would be something boyish like slipping over from chasing each other or accidentally getting pre-drunk off of one too many ciders: not dropping an expensive bottle of wine all over Akechi’s kitchen floor. Technically, it isn’t his fault, but he supposes he can take some of the blame for letting Ryuji go rummaging through the cupboards in the first place.

He finds a mop and some cloths in the cupboard by the bedroom, and tries his best not to knock anything else over on his way out. As he turns, though, a flutter of white catches the corner of his eye, and there on the floor, elegant and in full bloom, lies one single flower. It’s oddly familiar, the shape one that he’s seen before but can’t quite put his finger on. And then he remembers it in her hands. Soft between his fingers when he took it from her coat pocket. He sees her face, crumpled in irritation when he asks her where he is.

He knows it’s theirs.

From the kitchen, Ryuji calls him. He takes the flower and tucks it carefully into his back pocket before heading back down the hallway.

“Did you know Akechi was into flowers? I’m not judging, it’s just… there’s so many of ‘em.”

That one flower in his jeans feels insignificant when he sees the three bunches laid out on the counter. “Where did you find those?”

Ryuji gestures to the shelves behind him, where glass vases sit empty behind cans of nondescript contents and packets of instant coffee beans. “I was just seeing if there was something to clear up with. Wasn’t expecting to find these. What even are they?”

“White carnations.”

His answer comes out quicker than he wants it to, and Ryuji, always the observer, picks up on it, raises an eyebrow at him in interest.

“I’ve seen them before.” He explains, though the words strain through his closing throat. It’s hard, talking about the two of them, knowing how he feels. “Akechi buys them for her.”

“Oh.” Disappointment trails from his voice and lands on the floor as he scuffs his shoes along the tiles.

If he felt bad before, it only grows now as he watches his face fall, the tightness in his throat twisting down to his stomach. There’s a heaviness inside him that moves him to reach for Ryuji but he just shakes his head, waving him off with his hand.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. Let’s just clear this up before everyone gets here, ‘kay?”

A distant part of his heart chides him for bending down so quickly to chuck the shards of glass into the dustpan, while Ryuji so clearly deflates in on himself, limp limbs testing fate as he grazes each piece. It beats just a little harder against his chest, tells him ‘Say something damnit! He’s your best friend’, but all he can do is swipe more glass across the floor and offer a half genuine half oh-my-god-my-best-friends’-heart’s-breaking-and-I-have-nothing-to-say smile every time they accidentally meet eyes.

Each piece feels like a fragment of Ryuji’s heart, and they just so freely throw them away. Akira thinks about recycling, oddly,

and knows that this isn’t it for the bottle, or Ryuji. There’s still time for them both. Next time, they’ll be better.

As Ryuji picks them up, jingles them around on his way to the bin, Akira fights the urge to ask him if he ever found any aspirin.

**________**

_Akechi: 22:06_

This wasn’t what I was expecting tonight.

_Akechi: 22:09_

Do we really know all these people?

_Akechi: 22:25_

You are here, aren’t you?

_Akechi: 22:30_

My bottle of Sangiovese is missing. Any ideas?

_Akechi: 22:31_

No bother. I miss you. This cider is shit.

_Akechi: 22:43_

Have you lost your phone? I’ll come look for you soon. Make sure you have some cake, Akira practically shoved some down my throat earlier. It’s delicious.

_Akechi: 23:11_

Send me a postcard from whichever room you’re in!! It’s getting harder to type these. Don’t kiss anyone else but me.

_Akechi: 23:18_

That’s it. I’m sending a search party. I can barely see right now. Oh. Holding off on that search party. Will explain later.

_Akechi: 23:57_

I think I’m in love with you.

**________**

Ann’s borrowed jacket sits comfortably on her shoulders, though it’s not nearly warm enough for the balcony in the middle of December, it warms her blue bones to a neutral yellow.

Outside, her and Akira bite fingernails and chew lips. Her teeth ache from Winter and the burning question that bubbles in the back of her throat, leaving saliva thick and warm underneath her tongue. It tumbles: (“Why did he do it?”) sits densely in her mouth and leaves a bad taste. The flavour reminds her of bad coffee and blood, stale, and metallic, and it stamps out the taste of sweet wine on her lips.

Akira can’t speak. She wonders if he’s ignoring her or if he just doesn’t have anything to say. (Both options are as bad as each other).

The wind blows. Tokyo shivers and so does she. “I think he likes you.”

She scoffs and it’s bitingly unkind and unlike herself. “That’s just a stupid excuse.”

“Don’t be like that.” Akira’s sudden harshness comes as a shock to her. Mildness and Akira had always gonna hand in hand so when he throws her a look that says ‘grow up’ all over it, uses his words as admonitions instead of consolation, he feels colder than the sharpness of the air.

The ache in her teeth runs down to her heart. This time she has nothing to say.

“He just… cares about you. I can’t say how because I don’t get it. He didn’t want to see you with Akechi tonight so he invited a bunch of his asshole friends so he could avoid you. He won’t tell you this himself. Talk to him if you want, it won’t change anything either way.” He moves from the railings, then, slides down the wall to sit next to her. “Sometimes I think we’re all a bit in love with each other.”

She laughs and it feels foreign to her tongue. “What does that even mean?”

“You know,” he smiles. “The way you love a friend. I think we all love each other like that. Maybe even a little more sometimes.” There’s a moment where her heart thuds just a little off beat, because she knows he’s right. “That reminds me. I found this earlier.” He shifts on his side and takes a phone, her phone, from his pocket. “You should check it.”

Frowning, she stares at him, while he just grins at her. There’s still so much she wants to ask but Akira goes on, uninterested in any advancements to their conversation. Her eyes follow him as he stands, stretches his arms above his head with a tired sigh before he sinks back down and heads for the door.

“Come inside soon. I don’t want you to catch a cold.”

**________**

Even though he can hardly see, Akechi thinks the stars are beautiful.

He isn’t that drunk, he thinks, the cheap ciders Akira bought hardly had an effect on him. Part of him thinks he’s pretending so he can get away with spilling secrets and words he’d never say otherwise. But he likes pretending, finds it fun, finds it normal.

They’re a bit blurry so he has to squint to see them right, but he swears there’s two stars linked together, directly above his apartment, shining down on him with all the approval of fate that he needs.

Something finally feels right.

He doesn’t move when he hears her come out. Transfixed by the prospect of the world being on his side, he doesn’t have the heart to look away.

“The sky’s so clear tonight.”

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” He makes enough room for her to lay beside him, both of them shivering. It’s their own fault for being outside in the first place but the chill of the air pinches their cheeks to life and shocks their hearts back into motion.

They share a moment of quiet, both of them watching the world turn. “I used to be able to name the constellations.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” She yawns, and he realises he has no idea how late it is. “I had this book when I was younger, I used to read it all the time. But I think Akira stole it from me and never gave it back.” He laughs pleasantly. “God… I haven’t sat and looked at the stars like this in ages.”

“Does it scare you?”

“What?”

Akechi turns his head now, studying her face carefully. “The vastness of it all. Life. It’s so much bigger than us. So much is happening up there, and we’re stuck down here, throwing parties for no good reason, never saying what we really mean.”

He wonders if she ever read his texts.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did.”

“Shut up.” She laughs and the sound is golden. Lightheartedness dies down into a titter, and it’s suddenly serious (he feels it in the way she finally meets his eyes.) “Do you ever think about being normal?”

He doesn’t miss a beat.

“All the time.”

She nods and him and hums, her eyes searching him in the way he’s done to her so many times before. “We could try it. Couldn’t we. We can post pictures of each other online and people will hate us for it.”

“Despise us.” He corrects.

“Right. And I’ll take you home to meet my parents and we can go on double dates and everything will be just peachy.”

“It sounds awful, doesn’t it.” It’s not really a question, more him thinking out loud. As much as he thinks about the ease of living like everyone else, something about it repulses him. He knows she’s thinking it too.

“I don’t think there’s anything worse.”

**________**

_Ryuji: 01:20_

I’m sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not me wanting to write a book about hanahaki even though i know i couldn’t do it justice 
> 
> thank you for reading, this has been hard :)


	4. A Broken Guide to Love

The blurriness of an unread message sticks sharp in Ryuji’s throat. He tries to swallow and forget it, but it’s 2am and his body isn’t working properly so it sits, stagnant, leaves him with the flatness of regret bubbling in the pit of his stomach.

It’s not like he wants her to give everything up for him.

He’s just worried, he thinks, like a friend would be, naturally, if they were involved with a guy like Akechi. Nothing more than that though. Yeah, it stings a little when Akira tells him they have a special flower for each other (makes him feel a little nauseous too) but it doesn’t push him to cry over something that was never his in the first place, not something to lose sleep over.

Though, he supposes he’s losing it already.

Underneath it all, he’s glad he went. Amidst the bubbliness of alcohol and the strange fondness he feels towards a weeknight spent in with mostly strangers, he feels wanted. There’s a place for him there, a friendly invite offered even from behind his pretty firm ‘no.’ People- his friends- care about him there, and he gets to see them do it. The looks in Akira’s eyes are reminiscent of the ones his mother flashes to him when they sit quietly around the dinner table- kind and sympathetic, and when he catches them from across Akechi’s apartment, he oddly feels at home. Ann is pretty, pretty in an out of his league way but, pretty all the same; he likes seeing her bare shoulders, the way her forehead glistens underneath the harsh light of the kitchen. She asks him to get her jacket before they leave, says it’s outside on a cold pair of shoulders, pecks him sweetly on the cheek as she tells him ‘thank you.’

He sees her, then. It’s the first time that night, and it sends a jolt through him, unlike any adrenaline rush he feels after a long run or before enjoying a hearty bowl of ramen. His heart whirs in his chest, feels tight with the thrill of her, even if it is only her silhouette.

And then she turns over and he’s there, because of course, what else would he be expecting. Akechi’s laugh pours white spirit in the pit of his stomach, and he doesn’t wait for anything to set it alight, because it’s already burning red hot on its own. His hand lurches for the handle, but, then, sits, waits, for some unknown reason; something dampens the ember inside him. Somewhere through the darkness and the thickness of the glass, he knows she’s smiling: that big, full grin of hers. He likes to imagine her eyes lighting up with euphoria and youth, glowing under the light of the stars.

He hums, his hand falls from the handle, and he just stands there and smiles too- it couldn’t compete with hers, he knows that. Knowing that she’s smiling, laughing, finally living, quells the burning in his gut, so life beyond the door seems unimportant. They’re a new world, out there, different from him and everyone else inside. He’s not sure why the barrier sticks stiff between them, but he doesn’t want to step through, doesn’t want to break down what they’ve no doubt been working so carefully to construct together.

He steps away, fills the last hole in the wall with a Ryuji shaped brick, and thinks he knows what it means to love.

Ann can get her jacket back another time.

* * *

“Do you have any idea how weird that sounds?”

Akira’s bed creaks underneath the weight of Ryuji sitting up from it. There’s a shudder waiting at the base of his spine that sees the rush of air from Ryuji’s sudden movement as a sign to run its way to his shoulder blades. It makes him recoil in on himself, and in a way, offers solitude behind Ryuji’s questioning gaze.

His eyes are sharp with confusion, softened at the edges with humour and amusement, and they make Akira feel like an idiot.

“It’s not meant to be weird.” He argues, though he understands where Ryuji’s coming from: she had the same reaction earlier. “You of all people should understand what I mean.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t put it like that.”

The bed creaks again- Akira starts to worry it might break underneath them- and Ryuji stands up, moves silently to the window. It snows, again, heavier today than it did the day before, and Akira longs to be a little boy again, careless and knee deep in the fluffy white.

“I think I understood it. That night.”

He raises an eyebrow, shifts to the foot of the mattress. “You did?”

“Yeah. Well, I think I got an idea at least.” A ghost of a laugh leaves his lips and Akira thinks he’s watching the children playing outside. “Seeing someone else happy, even without you, isn’t that love? No matter how hard your heart aches for them, knowing they feel safe in someone else’s arms… that’s it, ain’t it?”

Speechless, Akira shifts. “I, uh, wouldn’t know.”

“You wouldn’t?”

He shakes his head, assumes Ryuji can see his reflection in the window since he sighs and slumps his shoulders. “Well. Count yourself lucky.”

“But it isn’t supposed to make you sad, is it? I think I know that much at least.”

“No offence man,” that laugh from before returns but it’s more biting and bitter in its nature, and it prickles Akira’s ears in an unpleasant way, “but that’s bullshit. The whole point of it is to make you sad.”

He groans, barely a whisper as he pulls his eyelids down to the tops of his cheeks. The words age him about 20 years, and he hates to feel so broken. It isn’t him but it’s his friends, run down harsh and cold by themselves, their hearts. Love isn’t fickle, he swears he knows that love is meant to be kind. But they don’t know it yet, they’re just kids and they slip and fall and that’s _okay_ because there’s still time for them.

He just wants to play in the goddamn snow.

“Get your coat.”

It’s rushed and and hasty but the intensity of liveliness pushes its way from his gut to his throat and he feels radiant for the first time in years. He’s running, and it’s almost impossible in that tiny room of his, but he’s running, dragging Ryuji from the window to hold him by his shoulders.

“Hey man! S-slow down!”

“There’s no time!” Akira stops, halfway down the stairs, his chest rising and falling in time with his heart. His breathing is deep but he’s glad because he wants to make the most of every last breath he’s got inside of him. “You can’t just stand there watching for the rest of your life. By the window, waiting. This isn’t you, Ryuji. It’s not. It’s time to go outside, get some snow on your skin.”

He hangs his head and shakes it, soft chuckles shaking his shoulders. “I know that’s some dumb metaphor for life or whatever, but, uh, I really do wanna play in the snow.”

“Then what’s stopping us?”

* * *

He doesn’t see the white flowers on his doorstep when he gets home

* * *

The thrum in the back of his head keeps Akechi against the cool glass of the window. He feels glued there, obliged to stay because his body won’t let him move- his limbs say no to a cup of coffee and his stomach flips at the thought of one.

He’s not sure what he’s feeling: the rush of the jabbing in his head mixed forcefully with the heaviness of his heart makes it hard to distinguish between groggy and giddy. Unread messages sit stiff in his memory, ugly in their picture, and while it’s kind and normal to lay and watch the stars with a girl who might as well have been sent by them, it isn’t enough. It’s only temporary: those messages are forever.

The words flash behind his eyelids, coloured golden with hope and what he hates to call naivety. Each letter burns a fresh imprint into his brain, scorches and brands him a fool. A hopeless romantic. Something he would never dream of becoming.

It scares him, again, and he would run, he knows he would but his head hurts _so bad_ and his heart is in a restless battle with it so he just lets himself give in.

At least it saves him from being a coward.

“Good morning.”

Hearing her voice in the mornings is still new to him. The novelty hasn’t quite worn off yet (he hopes it never does) and each time it cracks, fractures the disquiet to his thoughts, a new wave of calm he can’t quite name, but likens to a gentle touch on the back of his neck, washes over him in the most heavenly way.

“‘Morning.”

She settles next to him, fragile on the windowsill, like two china ornaments, both of them waiting for their inevitable break. “It’s snowing.”

“Yeah,” he says. The coolness of the window starts to wear off, so he turns to face her, his back against the wall. “It looks so elegant from inside, don’t you think?”

“I think it’s even better from the outside.”

Akechi laughs, a low short chuckle that cures the increasingly insufferable silence inside the room. “Why’s that? Look here,” he points, rather accusingly, to a man bundled profusely in coats and all sorts of wool, gripping anxiously to a lamppost. “This poor gentleman can hardly keep himself upright. And look at that little nose of his- so red and cold. I bet he can barely see from behind all the snow.”

She thumps his arm and he’s glad to laugh again. “That’s because you’re boring. How about over there,” her finger jabs the window in the same way his did. “Look at those two. They’re happy, and-”

“He just fell over.”

“Shush.” Her lips twitch into a grin, and he’s about to deliver another quip when she takes his hand, guides him to where they’re looking. “Can’t you see? They’re laughing. Sure, he’s a little wet now, but, that’s the fun of it. They’re together. Life’s exciting- the snow, it’s exciting.”

Akechi squints down at them, two blobs running and shrieking in the open air. “But it’s cold.”

A quiet laugh pours from her lips. Soft, effortless, it tingles his ears and lights him up inside. “Like I said, boring.”

Sobriety gradually spills a grey-wash over the room again, the couple leave his eye line and her breathing steadies.

“I have a question.”

“Enlighten me.”

Akechi puts his feet on the ground, turns to face the apartment with his back to the window. “Why did you throw me a housewarming?”

Her silence panics him a little, pushes him into a half thought out sentence. “It was wonderful, really, and I appreciated the sentiment it’s just…” bitterness twists his laugh into a sigh. “I’ve lived here for a year. People don’t _do_ housewarmings after a year, they don’t really do them anymore anyway, but, the point is, why did you have to do something?”

“I thought you were slipping away.”

He hears her suck in a breath but he’s too afraid to look her way.

“The day after you bought me that flower, I went to see Akira. I had to find out what it meant.”

The bunches he went out for flit in and out of his memory. His stomach feels heavy.

“And he asked me where you were. I realised I had no idea. So I made it up, told him you were working, because I was too embarrassed to admit that you didn’t tell me. Everyone thinks we’re together Akechi, it seems like they know more than we do.”

Somehow, the dread sinks further.

“He had this idea. Maybe if we got you together with all my friends, nothing big or overwhelming, you’d open up a bit more… start telling me things. And I’d do the same.”

“But that friend of yours, Ryuji…”

“He ruined it. I know.” She sighs, and it’s long and drawn out, and he hates to hear her so distressed. “I know.”

“Well,” he starts, and he can finally manage to look at her. “I think it still worked.”

Her head snaps up and they finally meet eyes with each other. He forgets how easy it is to get lost in them. “How so?”

“I wasn’t going to tell you, I didn’t want you to think of me as some strange character doing obsessive little things. But, I wasn’t at work that day.”

Eyebrows raised, she flashes him a look that says ‘go on’, and he gathers all the courage he has in his body and pulls it right up to his throat, filling it with truth.

“I went back. Took all the money I had in my pockets. I found the man at the stall, he was just about to pack up, and I bought all the white carnations he had.”

She lets out an odd snorting sound and he frowns.

“Look it’s not funny. I know I sound stupid- crazy, even- but. Dear God, please, don’t laugh at it, it was a way for me to be close to you. I wanted to surround myself with you, but I didn’t want to frighten you, or myself at that, so I went mad on the flowers, put them everywhere. The cupboards, my bedroom, hell, I even started wearing one on my jacket,” the exasperation in his voice stretches it thin, “They were you. Every petal, every bloom, it was all you.”

Neither of them say anything for a while, and Akechi worries that he’s said too much. Maybe actually asking her to be around more would’ve been the better option.

“You um,” her voice wavers, and his fears only worsen. “You bought them all?”

“Every last one.”

He figures bravery is his only route now, given that he might’ve ruined everything they had. Spilling his guts out couldn’t be worse than anything he’s already said.

“I don’t even know what to say.” She turns, sits close to him, puts her head on his shoulder. At least there’s clarity there, in the way she lingers against his neck, breathing him in, the rhythmic blow of her breath easing his growing dread. “Should I be afraid?”

He scoffs, dislodging the thickness in his throat that had begun to stick. “The fact that you have to ask is a bit fucked up.”

Half-baked laughs tickle the skin behind his ear, breathy and cool in their nature. “I suppose,” (she takes a deep breath, he feels it and it burns) “you’re right.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” he shakes his head and he feels anxiety swirl with that painful thump in the back of it. “You shouldn’t be afraid.” Another question knocks at the backs of his teeth, sensitive and chilling: it wanes the new sliver of courage he’s been leaning on. A beat. His heart lurches in his chest, mouth opening once, twice, before it’s out. “Do I make you afraid?”

“God no.” Her response is immediate, and it’s enough to settle the haziness of his head. He’s glad he can’t see her face, because he sure that if he could he’d crumble away, folding into spills of painfully continuous tears, ugly and dense with the seething, salty taste of complication.

The soft pressing of her lips into his skin, broken by the gentle repetition of ‘no’s, lets one of those tears slip tenderly down his face, and it’s not sad or pitiful (thank God). It seeps sweetly between the cracks in his skin, buries itself beneath cells and years of faked smiles, then drips off his chin down to his collar. There’s a sense of finality about it, whether it’s from the fact that it’s the only one that falls or because his brain’s telling him that this is a new beginning for him, he can’t quite tell.

“I wish,” her voice is more resolute when she speaks this time round, Akechi likes the fullness of it, though he misses the gentle pulses of air hitting his neck. “I wish I’d have known what they meant to you.”

“How were you to know?”

She shakes her head (it’s uncomfortable against his shoulder bone). “I couldn’t have, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still wish.”

Unexpectedly, a smile creeps to his lips, as he finds himself recalling a memory from a few nights before. “Like the stars,” he says, “You said you used to be able to name the constellations. While you were there… did you ever wish for anything?”

“I thought about it, yeah.” The wistful outline of her voice makes Akechi wonder if she’s thinking of times before where she might’ve stared up at the sky, begging and pleading to something that was never even listening in the first place. “That night, on the balcony, I could’ve made one.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything.” She sits up again, and he fights every nerve in his body to not hold her and move her back. “As much as I might want them to, wishes like that can’t fix us.”

It’s so painfully quiet after that. The silence spreads itself thick and even across the room, feels cottony and unpalatable in his mouth. He wants to say something, slice through it with humour and wit, but she’s staring so intently at him that he knows he’ll interrupt if he does.

His heart heavies when she speaks again.

“Did you mean it?”

His understanding of what she means is immediate. There they are again, pretty and honest, hopeful in the way they curl around his brain. She’s read them, every flick of every letter, every black line, she’s seen and now he is open to her, blank and vulnerable like an empty book.

And of course he means them. Perhaps he was just drunk enough to understand what they really meant, why he chose that moment to say them. But his mouth and his mind won’t cooperate, and as instantly as he wants to reply, he. just. can’t.

Understandably, her gut reaction is to assume the worst. “Akechi,” she’s looking at him and he feels himself look right back through her, paper thin, transparent. “I’m asking you, did you mean it?”

Hoarseness and the thickness from before stifle his first attempt: the yes he tries to give her is gravelly and unpleasant. The second time it’s strong and certain, and he focuses himself back to her gaze, fixing onto it. His heart thuds so loudly in his ears that he worries he might die, but he pushes further, pulls the blindfold from his eyes. “I’m in love with you.”

He isn’t sure what he’s expecting, all his answers range from a thank you, a kiss, a fanfare, perhaps. Another question doesn’t make his list.

“How do you know?” she asks and her eyes search him, kind beneath the cloud of tears. “What’s it like?”

He takes his time, mulls it over, because if there’s one thing he wants to articulate properly, it’s this.

“It hurts.” She squints at him but he ignores it. “My stomach is in knots every time I’m near you, and then it creeps up into my chest, it feels like my heart is being squeezed so tightly. I’m just so stuck on you. I can’t not see you, or be without you. It hurts, so, so bad. But I know that if it stops, it’ll hurt even worse.”

Every inch of his body feels like it’s on fire, sending tingles right through him. They twist and pull on his heart, churn it to, what he can only assume to be, an unpleasant mush of love and insecurity.

“You know I’d say it back.”

“I do.”

She invites him in and his head falls to her shoulder this time. Warmth creeps up into his fingertips, the beginnings of a thaw to to chill of his bones, that no amount of snow outside could start to numb. Time feels like it’s stopped, stood still just for them. The world watches, waits, and Akechi doesn’t mind- he watches it back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’d very much like to talk with you all about this, if you wanted to share any thoughts. thank you for following me on this journey, i hope i can see you all with my next cheeky writing endeavour. all my love <3


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